Parliamentary elections in Italy 1948
The parliamentary elections on April 18, 1948 were the second elections for universal male and female suffrage in Italy after the end of war and fascism and the first under the new constitution of the republic , after the elections to the Constituent Assembly of 1946 . There were 574 seats in the Chamber of Deputies ( Camera dei deputati ) and 237 in the Senate ( Senato della Repubblica ). The elections were marked by the looming Cold War and the clash between the major parties of the Christian Democrats and Communists . The DC achieved a clear victory in the elections on April 18 with an absolute majority of parliamentary seats and achieved the best result ever achieved by any party in parliamentary elections in Italy with 48.5% of the vote.
prehistory
After the liberation in 1945, the major parties initially worked together within the framework of the "anti-fascist consensus" to restore orderly relations and draft a democratic constitution. In May 1947, socialists and communists were expelled from the government of Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi - the cause was disagreement over economic policy, but the background was the increasing bloc formation in Europe due to the conflict between the victorious powers, the USA and the Soviet Union . Police took action against communists over the next few months, while numerous former fascists were granted amnesty and kept in office or reinstated. On the part of the Democrazia Cristiana with the active support of the Catholic mass organization Azione cattolica and Pope Pius XII. the election campaign was staged as a kind of anti-communist crusade. "While the DC demagogically exploited people's longing for peace, food and a carefree life in their election campaign, the socialists and communists relied on the fighting spirit of the glorious days of the Resistance ."
Results
| Political party | Number of votes | Mandates |
|---|---|---|
| Democrazia Cristiana (DC) | 48.5% | 305 |
| Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI) and Partito Socialista Italiano (PSI), as an electoral alliance "Democratic People's Front" ( Fronte Democratico Popolare (FDP)) | 31.0% | 183 |
| Partito Socialista Democratico Italiano (PSDI), as the electoral alliance "Socialist Unity" ( Unità Socialista (US)) | 7.1% | 33 |
| Partito Liberale Italiano (PLI), as an electoral alliance "National Block" ( Blocco Nazionale (BN)) | 3.8% | 19th |
| Partito Repubblicano Italiano (PRI) | 2.8% | 14th |
| Partito Nazionale Monarchico (PNM) | 2.5% | 9 |
| Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI) | 2.0% | 6th |
| South Tyrolean People's Party (SVP) | 0.5% | 3 |
| Partito dei Contadini d'Italia | 0.4% | 1 |
| Partito Sardo d'Azione (PSd'Az) | 0.3% | 1 |
| Others | 1.3% | - |
consequences
The victory of the Christian Democrats was based primarily on the electorate of the rural regions of northeast, central and southern Italy. The communists gained a majority in 21 provinces, especially in the industrial regions of Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna . This established a distribution of forces that was unlikely to change until the end of the Cold War and the serious political changes at the beginning of the 1990s. Other fixed points of the political culture of Italy up to the 1990s also emerged from these elections:
- the system of " polarized pluralism ", in which the DC always won the election,
- the exclusion of the communists as the second largest party from all governments
- the strong role of ideologies, especially the opposition between communism and anti-communism, so that the supporters of the big parties represented completely different concepts of society,
- the transformation of the political opponent into an enemy who had to be delegitimized,
- the presence of strong mass parties on the right and left, including the associated front organizations, media (from 1975 Rai 1 & Rai 3 ), trade unions ( CISL & CGIL ), etc., which caused a social division,
- the low mobility of voters,
- the affiliation of Italy to the western bloc ( NATO ) with a market economy-democratic system
- the more or less prominent influence of the Catholic hierarchy on politics
Individual evidence
- ^ Friederike Hausmann: Brief history of Italy. From 1943 to the post-Berlusconi era, Berlin 2006, p. 46.
